Return to Sleepaway Camp's road to release has been a rough and rocky one. Along the way it's garnered the ridicule of genre fans that liked to proclaim that it was "never coming out". Most of us were beginning to think it was going to go the way of the aborted planned forth entry - of which footage is included in Anchor Bay's box set of the first three films. The prospect of it was always exciting as original writer-director Robert Hiltzik was back and it promised to be a return to the 80's slasher movie feel. It's just too bad that, rather than pretend they didn't exist, the makers of this didn't take more inspiration from Michael A. Simpson's two previous sequels as they were a lot more fun and actually worked pretty damn good as both camp and slash 'em ups.

The opening newspaper clippings that run behind the credits quickly bring us up to speed on the Angela Baker killings at Camp Arawak and how they've gone and re-opened the camp all these years later under the new name Camp Manabe. Looks like things haven't changed much over the years as we're introduced to chubby bully Alan (Michael Gibney) who, when not picking on those younger than him, is crying incessantly about being picked on - including when he's tricked into smoking a joint made-up of cow dung and when his stepbrother is mean to some frogs he considers his only friends. This amounts to Hiltzik's first mistake as I felt the little puke truly deserved what he was getting. You can't try and make your audience sympathetic to a character when he rarely treats people better than the bad treatment he himself is receiving.

If you've seen the first movie, then you know what happens next. That's right, everyone who picked on Alan soon starts being killed off. We get the kitchen help being dunked headfirst into hot grease, a gasoline drink that ends with a bang, the moron who is speared in the eye with a pointed stick after looking at it through a hole in the cabin floor numerous times (and pissing me off in the process), and a handful of other deaths. Hiltzik also attempts, poorly, to tie-in characters from the first movie as Paul DeAngelo returns as camper-turned-counsellor Ronnie and the voice-box sporting sheriff, which I assume is another failed attempt at humour, visits Angela's brother Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten) - who assures us she's still locked up.

The remainder of the movie stumbles along with only a few of the deaths (such as a barbed-wire trap and spiked bunk bed) managing to get my attention amongst all the lousy acting, badly written teen angst bullshit, and constant shots of Alan running away from people upset while screeching "your ass stinks!" to them. When the finale finally rolls around it's certainly predictable and is missing the memorable shock moment Hiltzik pulled off in the original. And, if you happen to be a glutton for punishment, you can stick around after the credits for a little added bonus death scene.

Compared to some of the other cast members on hand, Gibney could've been worse in the lead role. Sure, his character is obnoxious, but after watching DeAngelo failing in all ways to be an actor, Isaac Hayes make a brief "wink, wink" appearance as the camp's chef, and Robert Pastore looking embarrassed and miles away from his role on "The Sopranos", he's almost tolerable. Felissa Rose also shows-up in the finale to reprise her role as Angela but I've always preferred Pamela Springsteen's version of the character in the sequels and she's generally just here because: a) they needed to reveal a killer, and b) said killer had to be familiar to the fans.

I've never claimed to be a die-hard fan of the Sleepaway Camp movies, I much prefer my slasher goodness at the hands of the Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Jason Vorhees of the World, but I always had an appreciation for the first two flicks and got much entertainment from them. That's probably why Return to Sleepaway Camp pushed all the wrong buttons with me. It's a lazy follow-up made by people who are trying to live off their past (I'm mostly pointing the finger at Hiltzik and Felissa Rose here) and it never rises above feeling amateurish. I think the most amusement I'll get from this is trying to watch fan boy attempts to make excuses for why this sucks so goddamn much. (Chris Hartley, 1/4/09)

Directed By: Robert Hiltzik.
Written By: Robert Hiltzik.

Starring: Vincent Pastore, Jackie Tohn, Jonathan Tiersten, Paul DeAngelo.